Kanye West--Upon Further Reflection

Now, is he risking being on the outside of the "In" when he spews these lyrics? Yes. Does he care? No. Herein is the reason we can't get enough of Kanye.

[Entertainment: Music]

Observation may very well be my vice.

I'm an over analytical constructor of my own reality. Always aware of my surroundings, I tend to keep a lot of my thoughts and opinions to myself, out of fear of judgement. In my opinion, Kanye West does not possess the chromosome that filter thoughts before they formulate into words that fall upon the ears of others.

And for this reason, I am in awe. Kanye West is the megaphone for social injustice; untamed emotions and seething anger that most of us neglect due to our self consciousness.

One evening as I browsed the Internet, I came across the interview of Kanye West conducted by NBC's Matt Lauer. Twitter and Facebook were abuzz about how he had yet unleashed another tantrum, and wrote it off as another Kanye show out. As I reviewed the interview, I put myself in his shoes.

As someone who is forthcoming about the mistakes he has made in the past, it didn't prove sensible for "The Today Show" to run his national mistake, at a pitch in which he could not only hear his embarrassing moment; he could relive it to the point of disrupting his current thought.

If I were Kanye, I would have been agitated with NBC as well. The fuel that added to the fire was the immediate backlash that portrayed him as--well, crazy. When in reality, he is a musical genius. West is extremely intelligent as well as socially astute.

On his current album release he shakes us into reality with his biting words. On "Gorgeous" Kanye West reminds us that as far as he or the rest of us have come in American society "they" are still in control: "Face it, Jerome get more time than Brandon and at the airport they check all through my bag and tell me that it’s random."

He acknowledges that he has been accepted into "their" world but at a price "as long as I’m in Polos they think they got me; but they would try to crack me if they ever see a Black me."

Now, is he risking being on the outside of the "In" when he spews these lyrics? Yes. Does he care? No. Herein is the reason we can't get enough of Kanye. We the consumers of his artistic heart, need him to be the one that recognizes oppression, points the finger at the culprit and forces them to acknowledge that we know, that they know, that we know.

He's the the friend that's defending our honor, vulnerability and disdain. Without Kanye West and those like him, our matriculation into the loss of the most important portions of ourselves, is more acceptable. Inevitably we become mere shadows of freedom fighters, who discontinued their fight for freedom.